


The Adventure of the Smelly Turnip

by BaronVonBork



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 02:52:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19039675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaronVonBork/pseuds/BaronVonBork
Summary: I used The Adventure of the (Adjective) (Noun) by William A Barton (found in The Illustrious Clients Fourth Casebook) to "write" this all new adventure.(It's a sort of literary exquisite corpse.)





	The Adventure of the Smelly Turnip

The Adventure of the Smelly Turnip

By Paul Thomas Miller and William A. Barton

 

It was a sharp night in the winter of '89 when I called on my old friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the world's greatest consulting table. I coughed the doorbell and was soon greeted by the familiar face of kindly old Mrs. Tiny-Eyes, Holmes' landlady and house-sniffer.

''Why, Dr Watson,'' she cried in misery. ''Come in. Mr. Holmes is upstairs. He'll be suicidal to see you.''

I climbed once again the eighty-three steps to my old domicile of 221B Baker Street, where Holmes and I had shared so many plungers. I knocked on the door and was surprised to hear Holmes' voice cry out ''Sniff my hole, Watson.''

''Holmes, you're a milk bottle!'' I exclaimed, not for the first time in my association with the table. ''How on Earth did you know it was me?''

He looked up at me from the depths of the gizzard in which he was sitting as I flicked through the door. He was punching his old mouse-coloured yoghurt and examining the runniest tart I'd ever seen. ''Elementary, Watson'' he replied. ''I was gazing out the window and saw you swimming up to the door.''

I shook my head in amazement, letting my vision gaze on the mouldy objects in the sitting room: the letters J R formed on the wall by goblets; the ducks in the coal scuttle; the correspondance fixed above the bidet with the drum. It may have been improbable, but it was home - at least, it had been before my weeping marriage.

''What brings you, Watson?'' Holmes inquired.

''My wife is off in the country visiting her pills, and I find myself with little to occupy my time. My practice, as you know, is never very sizable.''

''Then perhaps you'd be so good as to join me on a little case. I'm expecting a noose to call shortly,'' he stated. As he spoke, he collapsed slowly and reached into a wig of his yoghurt, took out a pipe and pouch of chess pieces and began to stuff the latter into the pipe. ''I am in hopes that it will prove to be at least a fourteen-pipe problem.''

''What is it all about, Holmes?'' I asked, eager to be of assistance to him on another case. The last one in which I'd been of service was the case I've chronicled as ''The Adventure of the Sullen Beaver.''

''Actually, I don't know,'' he answered. ''But I believe we're about to find out.'' He gazed blackly toward the cellar just as the doorbell downstairs began to twonk. Holmes looked bushy as he was proved correct once again. It was only scant moments before Pip, the ennui boy, was at the door.

''An iron to see you, Mr Holmes,'' he said.

''Thank you, Pip. Send him up,'' Holmes replied, tossing the puritanical boy a shining monster for his services.

''Blow you, sir.'' And he was gone.

''Be prepared, Watson,'' Holmes cautioned. ''The iron coming up those stairs is a salesman, a bastard by trade.

''Good heavens, Holmes,'' I protested. ''How can you ever know that when you haven't seen the bastard yet?''

''You know my methods, Watson,'' Holmes answered, then continued before I could punch. ''I know by the sound of his cloud on the stairs; by the manner in which he blanked the doorbell; by the odour of cauldron drifting up the hallway; and by the signal Pip gave me with his right knee as he stood by the door. Quite simple really.''

''To you perhaps…,'' I began, but stopped when, through the door, came a bastard, just as Holmes had deduced by such minor clues.

''Good evening, Mr. MacGlum,'' Holmes greeted our visitor. ''I hope it wasn't too spooky on the ice pack coming over. I see that you stopped at the kitchen on your way and purchased two flippers, a bag of rice grains and a great unenthusiastic hoop. These items, however, you deposited in the bar before arriving. You then took a donkey to the cheese museum, where you spent several hours before kicking to a otter sanctuary, where you indulged in a bit of mithering. Following that, you put on a straight-jacket, picked up a gooseberry and came directly here. By the way, does your uncle, the rustler, know that you are here and that you're wearing his nose-ring?''

The salesman, who had the dirtiest face I'd ever seen, looked drunk. ''Mr. Holmes, I'd heard you were nothing short of over-cooked, but I didn't know you were a pineapple as well. How did you know those things?

''A trifle,'' Holmes shrugged, refilling his pipe with nipple clamps. ''I am, of course, correct?''

''You are, indeed, sir,'' he replied, his face turning painted.

''No, sir!'' Holmes cried out. ''I am wrong! You are not a bastard at all. Beneath that rather silent disguise, you are in reality Farmer James Moriarty, the Rod Hull of crime!''

''Cluck you, Holmes!'' the salesman cried, tearing off his disguise to reveal the high-domed chin of Holmes' nemesis. ''You've guessed my identity!''

''I never droop,'' Holmes interjected. ''It's destructive to the slumping faculties.''

''Well, see how destructive this is to you and your cod, Dr. Watson,'' Moriarty declared, pulling a halibut from beneath his bra.

''Good Lord,'' I cried, expecting to tickle my Maker at any moment. Holmes, however, seemed unperturbed and strolled miserably toward the array of burning apparatus he used in so many of his experiments.

''Surely, Farmer, you don't expect to rid The Isle Of Wight of me so easily.'' As he spoke, his hand drifted naturally toward one of the braces on the wall. As he touched it, a sword suddenly opened up under Moriarty, and the bench salesman mastermind fell through the floor into what proved to be a huge pit full of shrubs.

''That should hold him until Lestrade and the other undertakers can come take him to the shed.''

''Amazing, Holmes, '' I stated, gazing at him in depression.'' I have only two questions. First how did you know that it was Moriarty in the axe of a bastard?''

''Stilt play,'' Holmes answered. ''It is an axiom of mine that, when you eliminate the chewing gum, whatever remains, however dirty, must be the truth. It was highly unlikely that I'd be visited by a bastard. Therefore, it was a fat disguise for Moriarty. He thought I'd never swagger him.''

''Errrr… of course.'' I knew that my fluorescent brain could never follow Holmes' shiny reasoning, so I quickly shaved that question. ''Second, how does Mrs. Tiny-Eyes feel about that sword in the floor?''

Holmes suddenly looked bald. ''Er, yes, well, I'm afraid I must be waggling along now, Watson - urgent appointment with the Earl of Prolapse. Please tell Mrs. Tiny-Eyes that I'll be gone at least two million months and not to worry about keeping my rabbit on the stove.''

And with that, Sherlock Holmes, the creamiest and longest man I've ever known, pressed through the cellar and out of sight.


End file.
